Ash(63)

I finally dragged myself to floor eleven, striding past the ash on the desk and grabbing my usual bottles of blood. Slipping into my cubicle, I almost shrieked as a familiar blond head of hair sprang into my vision.

“Tess!” I forced myself not to bowl her over in my enthusiasm. This was not a scheduled visit but she must have known how badly I needed her. We were totally due some girl talk.

In my distracted state, it took me longer than usual to notice how glammed-up my best friend was. She had always dressed nicely. Her mother’s family had more than enough money to indulge her sense of fashion, but this was a whole other level. Her icy blue dress was skin-tight and clearly designer. Its thin straps barely held her boobs in, and there were these gold drapings of chain crisscrossing over the backless part. Gold, which looked real. You could always tell that cheesy yellow from the true golden color of the real stuff. Real freakin’ gold on her dress! Her boots were thigh-highs, and looked to be made from the skin of a seal or something, soft and rich. What the hell? This was Tess Couture Barbie.

We stared for a few more moments. I was trying to wrap my head around this new Tess. Even her makeup was different, heavy but tasteful, and her hair was tightly pulled against her head. Which she usually hated.

“You look different,” I finally said, hoping she would start bouncing around in her usual manner. It hadn’t really been that long since I’d seen her. What had changed?

Some of my icy fear dissipated as a smile crossed her lips; the ghost of my best friend was still there. “I’ve missed you, bitch.” A trickle of relief followed, and I took the opportunity to cross the room and throw my arms around her.

“I’ve missed you too,” I said, before pulling back from her. “What’s up with all the Hollywood bling-bling? You going out after this? Paris fashion week?”

We sat then. I chugged into the first bottle of blood, which slightly eased the ache in my stomach.

“No, Blake owns a design house. He’d been helping me out. Styling me so I fit in more.”

My face fell. It hit me then what this was all about. Blake wanted to ask permission to turn Tessa. He’d said so the last time I talked to him, and he was trying to slowly work her into Hive society before that. Very few humans were allowed to become vampires. Firstly, the human government took any forced infection seriously, and no one wanted scrutiny from them. And secondly, Hives across the world were very limited in space.

I wanted to lean forward, grab her hands, and start begging her to not be so stupid, to not throw her life away on a dude that she had just met. Blake seemed like a pretty good guy, but he was still a vampire. Just like me and Ryder were still ash. None of us could be trusted. None of us were human any longer, and I wasn’t sure about the other two, but I’d have given anything to have my old life back. I missed my mom. I missed school. I missed the normalcy.

But there was no going back for me. It was too late. Tessa, on the other hand, she was choosing this and I wasn’t sure I could sit back and let that happen. I wrenched the bottle from my fangs, throwing it into the trash. “I am begging you not to do this, Tessa. Think about your family. Think about everything you will be giving up. This is not the glamorous life you believe. And you will never be able to have kids.”

My eyelashes fluttered for a moment as a heavy weight descended in my chest. “I can never have kids,” I said with barely a whisper. “This is not a gift, it’s a fucking curse.”

And with those last words I tore out of the room and left my wide-eyed, slack-jawed friend sitting there. I was so all over the place. In all honesty, despite my words to Tessa, I didn’t actually hate my life here that much. But it wasn’t a choice I’d have made either. I wanted to scare her, make her question this thing with Blake. I wasn’t sure it was enough, I knew how stubborn she was. Maybe I needed to pay a visit to Blake, or even Lucas. My previous sponsor was the head of the sixth house, and that was Blake’s house.

Maybe he could have a word with him. I wasn’t sure how much control the heads of the houses had over their members. The heads were the Quorum leaders of course, and as a group they were scary, but they didn’t seem to do much individual day to day monitoring of anything. I had never even officially met the head of the fourth house, even though I was in that branch. Which led me to believe that they were always off doing other things. The rules of the Hive were basically enforced by Ryder and his men. Despite the fact that vampires thought of themselves as superior, they seemed to do jack all in regards to the heavy lifting.

I often wondered why they gave so much power to the very race which might one day band together and rise up against them. It hadn’t happened yet, but one day the ash would revolt. The culling was barbaric, and I wasn’t sure I could be in the Hive for the next one. I still, on occasion, had nightmares thinking of the men I’d killed.